An inappropriate solution for grade inflation

By Jessica Meyer

Yet this is not what caught my attention. Instead, I was particularly struck by an editorial from Brent Staples, explaining and supporting the solution for grade inflation suggested by Duke Statistics Professor Valen Johnson ["Why colleges shower their students with A's," New York Times, 3/8/98]. According to Staples, Johnson feels that "rigorously graded courses" should be weighted more heavily when calculating GPA than "courses where high marks are more generously given." It soon becomes clear that in referring to "rigorously grades courses," Staples is describing math and science classes. Staples writes that an arrangement giving all courses equal weight "rewards students who gravitate to courses where high marks are generally given and punishes those who seek out math and science courses, where far fewer students get the top grade."

Admitting my bias as a history major, the judgment Staples makes about the value of a student's choice of major distressed me. What is implied for the English majors who, in order to study more of the subject they are really interested in, take the bare minimum of math and science classes required to gain their degree? Are they therefore less intelligent than their pre-med roommates? A degree in the humanities would suddenly seem to have less value than one in the sciences. This is nonsense, considering that most humanities courses emphasize two very important skills: reading and writing.

The real problem is that courses which emphasize these particular skills usually base their grades on papers, the evaluation of which is inherently subjective. It is this subjectivity that makes grade inflation possible. To discount the humanities because they are more prone to grade inflation, however, does a great disservice to classes which broaden students' minds if only by exposing them to a wide range of topics, sources, and works of art and literature.

Furthermore, the number of students choosing to major in the humanities has already been halved over the course of the past quarter-century. The prevalent opinion in our society seems to be that the humanities consist of useless subjects which serve no purpose in preparing young adults for life outside the ivory tower. Johnson's grading plan would only reinforce this idea by automatically debasing the criteria upon which the minds of humanities students are judged.

As already discussed, the humanities emphasize literacy skills, which are declining across the nation. You are never going to improve a person's writing ability or articulateness by encouraging him or her to take courses that do not exercise those skills.

Grade inflation is a difficult problem, and I am not sure how to solve it. The one thing I am sure of is this: setting up a relative system of grading can only serve to reinforce the lack of importance that reading and writing currently have in our society.

Jessica Meyer is a junior in Jonathan Edwards.

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